This week will look at an entirely different subcategory of beer. There are many beers that use similar ingredients to other types of alcohol. One massively growing trend is aging in wine, bourbon, whiskey and scotch barrels. There are sediment, trace amounts of extra liquor and dormant (safe) bacteria left over in crevices and lining the barrel. Aging beer found in these creates a consistently unique taste from every barrel. Also, using yeasts and bacteria from other kinds of alcohol, like champagne and wine, develops an unusual beer product, carrying with it qualities of the alcohol that the ingredients came from. This week’s beers are the best of their respective categories.

Consecration

Russian River Brewing Company, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Style: American Wild Ale

ABV: 10 percent

Rating: 4/4

Cost: $13 (375 milliliters)

Aged in Cabernet (a type of red wine) barrels, this beer has some currants added to it. It has a slightly acidic nose with light cherry coming through. It pours dark-brownish, but one knows it has wine-like characteristics on the first taste. It is sour, but not dry, and has some tart, vinegary flavor to it. As one of the rarest beers in the nation, this is a must-try.

Brute

Ithaca Brewing Company, Ithaca, N.Y.

Style: Golden Sour Ale

ABV: 6.5 percent

Rating: 4/4

Cost: $17 (750 milliliters)

The bottle description reads, ‘Brewed with vintage (aged) local hops, barley, wheat and corn, aged in oak with Brett and finished with three types of champagne yeast.’ Brett stands for brettanomyces, a yeast strain often found in red wines, creating an aged flavor. The champagne yeasts create a very dry finish with intensely high carbonation, making it fairly light, even at 6.5 percent alcohol. As a sour ale, the yeasts are key and develop a grapey tartness only this kind of beverage can achieve.

Bourbon County

Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago, Ill.

Style: Imperial Stout

ABV: 13 percent

Rating: 4/4

Cost: $22/4-pack, 12-ounce bottles

A beer aged for 100 days in bourbon barrels, this stout is extremely robust. It pours an intensely dark black and is as thick as molasses when flowing into the glass. The smell is glorious, with a combination of sweet oak, bourbon, chocolate, coffee and alcohol. Poured cold, the alcohol has less burn and allows for creamy coffee and chocolate flavors to shine, but drinking it warmer turns the coffee and chocolate more bitter and sharper, creating an amazing complexity.

— Compiled by Lucas Sacks, staff writer, ldsacks@syr.edu

Published on October 27, 2010 at 12:00 pm